Don’t Do Me Wrong!

“…describe an incident where you or someone was wronged, in what would normally be considered outside of the social norms, and how you reacted, how you wish you reacted and what is possibly the best way to inform these idiots that they screwed up if that is even possible.”

It was a nice lunch. My friend “Millicent” and I were at one of the only decent Chinese restaurants this side of Austin. The place was really crowded. There was a large party of seven at the next table. Our waiter also served them.

As we were finishing up, our waiter was bringing out the food for the party of seven. While he was trying to put the food on the tray stand, the stand collapsed, causing it all to crash rather noisily and messily to the ground. Not a single person from the restaurant came to his assistance. In fact, the manager was scolding the waiter quite loudly. She even went so far as to tell the other waiters not to help him get the mess all cleaned up.

So while the waiter is getting the last bits of the lunch off the floor, the manager goes over to that table and lets them know how incompetent he is and that they wouldn’t be charged for the extra food (like there would have been any doubt). At about this time, the waiter comes out with the second tray of food.

Chinese food can be pretty greasy, and I guess maybe he didn’t do such a great job of cleaning it all up, because he slipped on the same spot he dropped the food. While carrying a tray of seven lunches. But this time he got the food on them and in a few of their purses, ruining at least one of them.

Instead of helping him up, the manager continued to berate him in what I can only assume was some dialect of Chinese. As he struggled up, my friend and I could tell that he was hurt. He had hurt his wrist, and from the way he was limping, would probably have a nasty bruise on his hip. But as before, there was no help forthcoming. He was left to deal with this all on his own.

The manager moved the party to another part of the restaurant and again apologized for the ineptitude of this waiter. She then inspected the purse and offered to pay for it. The owner of the purse hesitated; it was a really expensive purse, she said. But the manager insisted, because the waiter would be paying for it. Out of his last check, since he would no longer be working there.

So here was this poor guy. The tray stand broke, causing the food to fall to the floor. No one helped him and he was left to deal with the situation on his own. He then slipped on the same spot, getting hurt in the process. And the end result of this would be that he was going to get fired, after paying for a really expensive purse and I would assume the three trays of seven lunches.

As my friend and I were leaving the restaurant, we came upon another waiter who appeared to have some seniority. We asked him who the woman was. It turns out she was the owner. When we told him that we thought she was being a bit harsh, he stated that maybe the tray stand wasn’t his fault, but he was wearing bad shoes that made it to easy to slip, so everything else was all his fault and he deserved to get fired.

My friend and I looked at each other. We couldn’t believe the royal screwing this poor guy was getting. There wasn’t a lot we could do, was there?

Well, maybe there was one thing….we had about $30 in cash between us. We could give him a really big tip. Under the table.

I looked back and saw that our waiter was limping toward the restrooms. I took the money and headed back there. As he came out, I gave him the money and told him that it was his and not to let the manager know about it. I gave him a quick hug and wished him good luck.